Keeping America Sacred

This short political remix states a clear argument, and follows through by advancing their argument by using adequate evidence in the form of politicians, from both sides of the aisle, repeatedly hitting buzzwords during the primaries for each of their respective parties during 2004.

The clear argument is found as text in the beginning; “How do you run a convention on a record of failure? Invoke 9/11” The video then shows all of the politicians repeatedly saying September eleventh in different iterations. The creator of the remix advances their argument with different points, of which the same evidence is used. The arguments continue; “Know your enemy”followed by the politicians saying Saddam Hussein. “Handle the Bin Laden situation appropriately” ironically followed by crickets and images of people sleeping and dozing. Their second to last point had enough evidence to last over a minute, truly driving the point home, this point was “And above all, spread fear” which was followed by the politicians talking of all sorts of awful things and speaking about nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction. The creator’s last point was made at the very end of the remix and concluded the remix, it simply read; “George W. Bush Keeping America Sacred.”

The argument the creator is making is that the politicians in the United States used fear-mongering in an attempt to secure a party nomination in the 2004 presidential election. The constraints that the creator operated within were essentially the simple text that was displayed to state arguments, and the compilation of several notable politicians using the same terms dozens of times in speaking engagements. The strategies the creator employed were hard cuts from text to footage, a strong utilization of repetition. It employed irony at two points; in the middle when mentioning Bin Laden, and then again at the end by stating that George W. Bush was keeping America sacred. The most insightful strategy utilized was the repetition of ideology and the the idea of fear-mongering when the argument was made that they spread fear, this really hit home because there was over one minute of evidence and it hit upon all of the points that were set up from the beginning of the video.